By Isaiah Esipisu
African Civil Society handing over their demands to negotiators |
As
the negotiations at the highest decision making authority on how to tackle
climate change enters the critical political stage, the outgoing chair of the
African group of negotiators has warned if African ministers do not remain
vigilant, decisions will be taken without their inputs.
“We
have already done our technical part in the negotiations, and we are already advising
the ministers accordingly. But if they do not sit in to ensure that the African
demands are adhered to, then decisions will be made, and they will be binding
to their countries whether they like it or not,” said Dlamini Emmanuel, the
outgoing chair of the African team.
The
Ministers of Environment from all the parties (countries) will join the
negotiators as from Nov 18 to Nov 22 to take decisions and agree on particular
issues following the one week long negotiations that begun on Nov 11, 2013 in
Warsaw, Poland.
“The
minister’s session is the most critical stage,” said Emmanuel. “Decisions taken
at this point are usually binding, and they come with timelines,” he told a
group of African civil society representatives in Warsaw.
One
African negotiator who has been in the Arena for the past five years says that
the process is all about compromise. “In negotiations, there are no winners. It
is all about compromise and it is all about give and take. And if the ministers
are not there to compromise, then the other part takes it all in their absence.”
He notes
that some of the biggest challenges in Africa include lack of resources to avail
enough negotiators in such forums, inconsistencies – where governments bring on
board new negotiators every year who still need to start learning the ropes,
and failure for African negotiators to prepare beforehand.
“African
negotiators hardly meet without a major event coming up. But we have several
opportunities for them to strike deals with major financing institutions and
related parties,” he told Thomson Reuters Foundation.
In the
previous negotiations, decisions have been taken without involvement of
representatives from some African countries either because they were busy
elsewhere or they were simply not available to defend their interests.
According
to Emmanuel, sometimes negotiations enter into an extra day after the
stipulated period of the conference of parties, and decisions are therefore
taken on that day. “Nobody will hold on a decision because it is being taken
when some ministers have already flown back to their countries following the
return trip on their air tickets. A decision will still be made, and it will be
binding to all the parties, present and absent,” he told Thomson Reuters
Foundation in Warsaw.
So far,
the civil society has criticised the overriding position at
the moment, and which was approved during the African
Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) - that the temperature rise
should be limited to 2 degrees Celsius up to the year 2020. “This is not
ambitious enough, given that the impact of climate change is already
unbearable. We need it to be reviewed to the limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius,”
said Mithika Mwenda.
He
pointed out that the biggest problem is that ministers are usually changed from
time to time, and the ones pushing for the previously made decisions or pledges
are not in many cases the same ministers who passed the very resolutions. “New
people always come with new priorities, and this is not always good for a
continuous negotiation process for a life and death issue like the one at hand,”
said the head of the African civil society groups.
The most
important issues discussed at all the Conference of Parties include
strategising on how to help farmers, individuals and communities adapt to the
changing climatic conditions, how to stop or mitigate climate change, how to
transfer appropriate technologies to enable adaptation and mitigation, and how
to finance those activities.
At the
COP 19 in Warsaw, Poland, on one hand, the African team say that the main
demands include compensation for the past climate injustices for loss and
damages, and increase for funding for adaptation and technology transfer.
On the
other hand, the developed world wants the developing world to take active roles
in mitigating climate change, a position that has been criticised by the civil
society groups from Africa and Asia.
However,
the main goal of the negotiations is to on modalities that will enable people survive
in the shifting climatic conditions, reduce further emissions of greenhouse
gases which cause global warming, and generally, to make the world a habitable
place for the current and the future generations.
“This is
our world. And our actions determine our survival,” said Mwenda.
No comments:
Post a Comment